Cheerful Abundance

a field notebook of suburban life

Xmas recap: part II

It seems crazy to finish recapping Xmas, what with it being the middle of January and all, but thanks to the polar vortex, our holiday was extended several days, and the kids just went back to school. Which I was pretending I was sad about, like all the other moms on my Facebook feed, but inside, I was jumping for joy. By the end of the holiday break, all screen time caps were lifted, and nobody was even trying to get out of their pajamas or eat regularly timed meals. It was not pretty.

Christmas morning, M. woke us up at 5:30AM, with a whisper. “I don’t think Santa came,” she told us, and her face about broke me. Our tree is upstairs, in our living room, but at our house, Santa delivered the goods to the den in the basement where the kids play and we watch TV. I quickly told her that her father and I had heard Santa on the roof last night, and that we bet he had so many presents for her that he had to leave them downstairs, and asked her to go check. She scampered off, and a minute later that was a tiny little shriek of absolute joy from the basement below us, and then she ran so fast upstairs, pounding each stair tread, that the house shook a little. It was, hands down, the very best sound I have ever heard, those loud, fast footsteps: the very essence of Christmas, as far as I am concerned. “HE WAS HERE!” she kept yelling, waking her sister up, who then also went to check on the loot and report back.

Overall, Santa did a great job. Someone got a Barbie, and she isn’t a Barbie kid, but Santa also brought these adorable zippered pouch ‘wallets’ with superheros on them, and they had money in them, which was a big hit, at least several dollars worth of change and folding bills. The kids really wanted Mario Kart, after hearing about it at school, and I initially said that Santa doesn’t bring video games, but then I did some research and realized that you can get Mario Kart for Wii, and it will work on the old first generation Wii that we already had but had never hooked up in the new house (which means the kids had no idea it existed). So we bought the game, and splurged on 4 racing wheels for controllers, and it was their favourite present. We play every day, and when the cold snap hit and we couldn’t go out for days, Wii Mario Kart and Wii Bowling saved us. It warms my cheapskate soul, as well, to get some real use out of our old Wii, which is new to the kids, and to avoid outlaying major cash for a game system like XBox that they aren’t old enough to really enjoy.

We didn’t go anywhere for Christmas, and nobody came to us, so it was a day spent in our pajamas, playing Mario Kart and Charades, and napping, and then I roasted a big turkey and we ate like kings, still in our PJs, and it was ridiculous and fun. I wish we had written Santa letters this year, but getting sick derailed that. It’s too bad, though, because one of my girls had the Christmas wish list that I just loved: she wanted, “my own room, with a TV in it, and a new phone (iPhone) just for me, filled with games.” Alrighty then, Miss Five-Going-On-Twenty-One; we will get right on that for you!

And then a giant ice storm hit, then a snow storm, then record low temperatures, and we spent the next two weeks indoors, and even the dog was pretty peeved about the enforced ‘peeing outside’ rule. Thank G-d for the video games, which saved us, and also there was so much TV watching and some book reading, and we practiced our handwriting and did a little cooking. It was a pretty low-key holiday: no travel, no extended family. But it was also a great holiday. Onward and upward, though: much as I love Christmas, I also love the moment the kids go back to school and the holiday is in my rear view mirror, and I can be off to the next big set of plans.